You have clients. They use email. They send text messages. They create documents. They take pictures. They make phone calls. They send messages on social apps. Imagine if one of your clients came to your office, and told you they were being sued. And all those personal and professional messaging systems were sources of potential evidence. How in the world would you avoid spoliation of evidence? How would you ensure you were gathering all the materials required by a request for discovery? How could you manage all the data you needed to sift through from the opposing party?
It’s a huge challenge. And as our clients create more data every day, there’s no excuse to be puzzled by e-Discovery. To that end, we’re asking Kelly Twigger of ESI Attorneys to tell How to Use e-Discovery and Win at a one-hour webinar on Nov. 29. To help us prepare for the program, Kelly is sharing answers to three essential questions anyone who needs to know more about e-Discovery should ask.
Kelly Twigger
1. Why does every lawyer need to understand e-Discovery?
Put simply, all of the evidence your clients need to prove their cases is electronic. The difference between paper and ESI (electronically stored information) is that clients used to be able to tell what was important and hand it to their attorney. They usually kept it all together or were able to find it easily. Now they can’t always find it all in all the systems that we use to create, send and receive ESI, and it has become the attorney’s job to know the right questions to ask to find out where it’s located, how to search it and how to get at the data for use in a case. It’s a very new complex and ever-evolving discovery process that we are facing. You can’t do discovery without ESI anymore and how you approach e-Discovery can make or break your case.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00NCBARBLOGhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngNCBARBLOG2017-11-14 11:54:142017-11-14 11:54:14E-Discovery As Part Of a Winning Strategy For Every Firm
When Thomas Robins heard about a $1.5 million cut to the budget for Legal Aid of North Carolina in 2015, he realized LANC would no longer be able to send an attorney to Randolph County to represent victims of domestic violence.
Without hesitation, Robins, a partner at Bunch, Robins & Stubblefield in Asheboro, assembled a team of attorneys — Sarah Lanier, Jennifer Bennett, Margaret Megerian and Brooke Schmidly — to not only temporarily fill this gap, but to ensure a long-term commitment to addressing the unmet legal need of domestic violence victims in Randolph County. Robins developed a weekly on-call rotation system for his team of attorneys to represent victims of domestic violence in Randolph County in domestic violence hearings.
Since spring of 2016, the group has collectively represented 114 victims of domestic violence in Randolph County.
https://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.png00NCBARBLOGhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngNCBARBLOG2017-10-25 11:30:042018-07-21 19:04:04The Fantastic Five: Randolph Co. Attorneys Unite To Fight Legal Aid Budget Cuts
Lawyers, you have another reason to smile this week.
It’s National Celebration of Pro Bono Week, an annual initiative spearheaded by the ABA Standing Committee on Public Service to enhance and expand efforts to increase access to justice for all. The #celebrateprobono effort gives legal communities around the country an opportunity to recognize the good legal volunteer work being done. In North Carolina, we have much to celebrate in this regard.
In January 2017, the N.C. Pro Bono Resource Center established North Carolina’s first statewide voluntary reporting process. This process allows attorneys to report information about their pro bono legal service in 2016. What we heard through that process was encouraging: Attorneys reported more than 25,000 hours of pro bono legal service provided last year. Further, 89.3 percent of respondents reported providing some legal volunteerism, and 20 percent of respondents engaged in all the types of activity included in the rule: pro bono legal service, law improvement activity, non-legal community service, and financial contributions to support civil legal aid.
https://www.ncbarblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Pro-Bono-Header.jpg9002817NCBARBLOGhttps://ncbarblogprod.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Blog-Header-1-1030x530.pngNCBARBLOG2017-10-23 10:43:532017-10-23 10:43:53Pro Bono Week: Celebrate Giving Back, Become Part Of the N.C. Pro Bono Honor Society
E-Discovery As Part Of a Winning Strategy For Every Firm
Featured PostsYou have clients. They use email. They send text messages. They create documents. They take pictures. They make phone calls. They send messages on social apps. Imagine if one of your clients came to your office, and told you they were being sued. And all those personal and professional messaging systems were sources of potential evidence. How in the world would you avoid spoliation of evidence? How would you ensure you were gathering all the materials required by a request for discovery? How could you manage all the data you needed to sift through from the opposing party?
It’s a huge challenge. And as our clients create more data every day, there’s no excuse to be puzzled by e-Discovery. To that end, we’re asking Kelly Twigger of ESI Attorneys to tell How to Use e-Discovery and Win at a one-hour webinar on Nov. 29. To help us prepare for the program, Kelly is sharing answers to three essential questions anyone who needs to know more about e-Discovery should ask.
Kelly Twigger
1. Why does every lawyer need to understand e-Discovery?
Put simply, all of the evidence your clients need to prove their cases is electronic. The difference between paper and ESI (electronically stored information) is that clients used to be able to tell what was important and hand it to their attorney. They usually kept it all together or were able to find it easily. Now they can’t always find it all in all the systems that we use to create, send and receive ESI, and it has become the attorney’s job to know the right questions to ask to find out where it’s located, how to search it and how to get at the data for use in a case. It’s a very new complex and ever-evolving discovery process that we are facing. You can’t do discovery without ESI anymore and how you approach e-Discovery can make or break your case.
Read more
The Fantastic Five: Randolph Co. Attorneys Unite To Fight Legal Aid Budget Cuts
Featured PostsEditor’s note: As we #celebrateprobono this week, we take a look at one group of lawyers’ innovative approach to helping their community.
When Thomas Robins heard about a $1.5 million cut to the budget for Legal Aid of North Carolina in 2015, he realized LANC would no longer be able to send an attorney to Randolph County to represent victims of domestic violence.
Without hesitation, Robins, a partner at Bunch, Robins & Stubblefield in Asheboro, assembled a team of attorneys — Sarah Lanier, Jennifer Bennett, Margaret Megerian and Brooke Schmidly — to not only temporarily fill this gap, but to ensure a long-term commitment to addressing the unmet legal need of domestic violence victims in Randolph County. Robins developed a weekly on-call rotation system for his team of attorneys to represent victims of domestic violence in Randolph County in domestic violence hearings.
Since spring of 2016, the group has collectively represented 114 victims of domestic violence in Randolph County.
Read more
Pro Bono Week: Celebrate Giving Back, Become Part Of the N.C. Pro Bono Honor Society
Featured PostsLawyers, you have another reason to smile this week.
It’s National Celebration of Pro Bono Week, an annual initiative spearheaded by the ABA Standing Committee on Public Service to enhance and expand efforts to increase access to justice for all. The #celebrateprobono effort gives legal communities around the country an opportunity to recognize the good legal volunteer work being done. In North Carolina, we have much to celebrate in this regard.
In January 2017, the N.C. Pro Bono Resource Center established North Carolina’s first statewide voluntary reporting process. This process allows attorneys to report information about their pro bono legal service in 2016. What we heard through that process was encouraging: Attorneys reported more than 25,000 hours of pro bono legal service provided last year. Further, 89.3 percent of respondents reported providing some legal volunteerism, and 20 percent of respondents engaged in all the types of activity included in the rule: pro bono legal service, law improvement activity, non-legal community service, and financial contributions to support civil legal aid.
Read more